Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (10 page)

Everyone liked
sparring with him. He was very good about not hitting too hard, and he was a
big target, so it was hard to miss him. Of course, those little touch strikes
that score points didn’t reflect what the reality of an actual fight with him
would be like. He could take a punch, and it was really hard to make a dent in
him with just fists. That’s exactly why Emily didn’t like sparring with Wayne.
She didn’t do touch strikes. She would knock you down, knock the wind out of
you, make you take it seriously when you threw a punch or a kick her way. She
didn’t hurt anyone in the dojo. But her opponents knew what it felt like to hit
the mat. Once, sparring with Wayne, she snuck a reverse punch past his guard
and nailed him right on the solar plexus. He hardly noticed. Anyone else would
have been gasping for breath. That opened her eyes. Two moves later he was
lying flat on his back tapping the mat. That was an important lesson for her
about the relative density of her opponents. But she was always worried about
really hurting him, that his joints wouldn’t be able to sustain the pressure of
moving the rest of his bulk if she applied a joint lock. He was very sweet
tempered, and she wanted to let him know she thought of him as a real opponent.
But she always looked for ways to take it easy on him, and hoped he didn’t
notice.

Hey, Em, you goin’ to the dojo
after school?” Wayne asked. “We missed you yesterday.”

“I dunno, Wayne,” she replied. “I
got a lot of stuff to take care of this afternoon. My dad had to go to the
Philippines with his boss. That’s why I wasn’t there yesterday,” she lied.

“How long’s he gone for,” Danny
butted in.

“Until spring. He might be back for
graduation.” The lie was starting to get sticky.

“Em, that’s like six months, man.
Whatcha gonna do for six months?”

“I know. It kinda sucks. They’ve
pretty much closed down the estate. I’m all alone out there, ‘cept for the
gardeners. I’m looking for a place to stay in town. I’m eighteen now, so it’s
all legal,” she lied again. Fortunately none of them had the slightest notion
when her birthday actually was.

“Hey, Danny. Don’t your mom need
someone to rent out the room above your garage?” Billy asked.

“Hey, yeah! Em, that would be
perfect for you. It’s got its own laundry and a little kitchen type area....
Yeah, but she probably wants too much for it,” Danny added dejectedly. Anyone
could see what the prospect of Emily living closer than next door would mean to
him. It could hardly be less than rapturous, especially this new,
non-intimidating Emily. So there was obviously no way in the universe he could
imagine this working out.

Emily’s ears perked up. “What’s she
want for it, dya think?”

“I think it’s two fifty a month,
but utilities are included. Can you swing that much?” This could hardly seem
like less than an astronomical sum to him, as they all knew, since he rarely
had even fifteen bucks in his pocket at any one time.

“That’s just about right, actually.
My dad gave me a bit more than that to live on while he’s a way,” she said,
almost truthfully. “Dya think I could come by later to look at it with your
mom?”

“I can call her after school, if
you want. Or you can see her when she picks me up at the dojo,” he offered,
hoping to lock her into coming to class tonight.

“I’ve got my
dad’s truck while he’s gone. I can give you a ride home.”

Danny called his mother at the
hospital the first chance he got to ask her about Emily. She could almost hear
her son’s heart pounding in his voice. She suspected he could barely hear what
she was saying, much less the reservation in her voice. “Another teenager,” she
thought. “Oy.”

But she had
already met Emily, on the night of the concert, thought she looked responsible,
no nonsense, if a little withdrawn. She couldn’t help being struck by this
exotic-looking girl. Maybe she would even be beautiful, if only she didn’t
dress like a commando. She knew Danny was smitten. That in itself made her
wary. And she knew nothing about her family. But she might as well talk to her.
The studio had been empty for several months now and she could really use the
extra money.

The rest of the school day passed
uneventfully. Emily could see her new look was drawing attention, more than she
wanted. It might be a good idea to tone it down a bit tomorrow. If only she had
some idea how to accomplish that, other than returning to her usual camo. In
fact, she had no idea what she was doing to attract even this much attention.
This new life was going to take some getting used to.

Going to the dojo turned out to be
a relief. Sensei shot her a knowing look, but he made no inquiries. He was
obviously curious about her new look. She went to the back to change clothes
before class; that was unusual right there. Ordinarily, her street clothes were
what she wore in class. Today, she dug a t-shirt and running pants out of a
duffle bag in her truck and wore those. And she changed back into her new
clothes after class.

It was one of Sensei’s meditation
classes this evening. She had been really looking forward to it, and for the
first twenty minutes or so she found a profound relief from just losing herself
in her breathing. She began to see the extremity to which the stress of the
last few days had brought her. She felt herself breathing it out and away. The
noise of her mind gradually died down, her thoughts slowed. She was able to
approach each one separately, turn it over in her mind, contemplate it.

She began to feel once again her
connection to the person she always was. Emily Kane and Michiko Tenno really
were the same person. Only external circumstances had changed. She could go
forward as Michiko and still retain everything Emily had achieved. She would
continue to go by Emily in school, so as not to create a public connection in
the minds of her teachers and classmates between her dangerous identity and her
safe one. She would have to figure out how to change her school records to
reflect her new name before graduation, so she could use those records to enter
college as Michiko. She would cross that bridge at the appropriate time. For
now, she would remain Emily.

Her mind drifted through memories
of her childhood, playing with her dad and Yuki, no, her mom. That last thought
was like a sunburst in her mind, blindingly bright. She almost laughed. It upset
her breathing. She had to regain her composure. She caught a glimpse of Wayne
in the corner, sweating profusely, completely at a loss as to the meaning of
this exercise. He flashed her a look, smiled his big, goofy smile at her. She
snorted, almost burst out laughing again. The rest of the dojo caught it, too.
Soon everyone was laughing.

Sensei came storming in from the
back room to see what was going on. He usually let Emily run exercises like
this one. But as soon as he saw her face, he knew she was at the center of it
all. There was no point going on. He tried to hide a smile and barked at them:
“Okay, fine. Floor exercises, then sparring.” He had them marching back and
forth across the dojo, practicing punches and kicks, combinations and evasions.
Finally, knife sparring. Not real knives, of course. Rubber knives. A punch or
kick landed counted for one point, knife contact counted for two, as did
disarming your opponent.

Emily was paired with Billy. He was
pretty good at this game. He had quick hands and good balance. Emily kept her
knife in her belt. She never used it in knife sparring. Her father always said
it was better not to have a weapon in your hands, not even a blade. The best
weapon is the one in your opponent’s hand. Obviously, this didn’t apply to
guns, unless you could get close enough.

Billy was a good challenge for her.
He held his knife blade pointing down towards his elbow. That way he could use
punch techniques with the knife in his hand. It was a good technique, though it
allows more blocks, especially inside blocks. Emily blocked him several times
in a row from the inside, each time spinning inside his attack, grabbing his
right wrist below the knife, twisting his arm up and around, taking the knife
from his helpless hand. Sometimes she forced him to stab himself in the ass. It
was all very humiliating.

The next time he switched to a
forward grip with the blade protruding from his thumb and forefinger. This was
better for stabbing motions, but it was also hard to block because the attacker’s
hand was free to slash through an inside block. But it was vulnerable to a down
block or grab. The first time Billy lunged, she slid back into a crane
position, then slid forward as she grabbed his wrist with both hands from above
and yanked his arm upwards. He winced from the pressure on his wrist and
dropped the knife. It was an awkward position for him. If she had pulled as
sharply as she easily could have, she would have broken his wrist.

He tried one last time to get past
her defenses. He knelt down to retrieve his knife. Then suddenly he lunged
upwards from below, no doubt hoping to catch her by surprise. But Emily
was
ready for him. Her mind flashed to
the scene in the basement tunnel, her father’s left arm swinging in a lazy
circle around the lunging blade. Her arms were already moving like her dad’s.
Billy seemed transfixed by the movement and stood motionless as she grabbed his
wrist from below, twisted it in towards his body and then sharply upwards.
Billy gave out a little yelp, half of pain and half of surprise, as he felt his
arm pulling his entire body into a flip. He could have resisted, but that would
have been much more painful, so he let his body go with it. Emily realized
halfway through the maneuver that if she held onto his wrist all the way
through she would surely dislocate his shoulder. She let go, and he went
sailing across the room. Fortunately he landed on some mats stacked in the
corner and avoided serious injury.

Emily shrieked “omagod!” and ran
over to help him. “Billy, I’m so sorry! I had no idea.... Are you okay?”

“That was amazing! How on earth did
you do that,” Billy gushed.

“No. It wasn’t,” Emily insisted.
“You could have been seriously hurt. I’m really sorry.”

“I’m fine, Em.
Don’t sweat it.”

Actually, Billy was more than fine.
He was ecstatic. Emily was apologizing to him! She thought she had made a
mistake. She never did that. She must have been distracted. “I wonder if she
likes me,” he mused.

Almost everyone else in the dojo
was entertaining an analogous train of thought. Most of them would gladly have
changed places with Billy. They all knew Emily cared about them. She was kind.
She taught them stuff. But her general demeanor was cool impassivity. She
didn’t make mistakes, and she never needed to apologize to anyone. Yet here she
was running across the room to help Billy up, dusting him off, apologizing to
him, really caring about him. This was a new experience for all of them.

Sensei’s thoughts were running in
an entirely different direction. He recognized that technique. He had never
taught it to her. It was a very aggressive move, almost cruel. Had she not
released Billy’s wrist at just the right moment, he would have been lucky to
get away with only a dislocated shoulder. Her instincts were superb, and her reaction
time was astounding. Billy was very fortunate, even if he didn’t realize it.

Where had she learned to do that?
Sensei knew her father was trained in those sorts of techniques. But would he
teach
that
to her? Or had she
developed it on her own? That was certainly not beyond her abilities, which
were formidable. But he had not expected her to be exploring such dark arts. He
began to wonder what else could be going on in her life. And how did it fit in
with the obvious changes in her social demeanor?

Emily was
deeply confused by what had just happened. She was shocked by what she had
almost done to Billy. She had never practiced that move. She had only just seen
it for the first time a few days ago. When her father did it, he didn’t hold
back at all. He meant to kill his attacker. She had no such intention for
Billy. They were just practicing, almost playing. She was fascinated by what
her father had done, not by the violence of it she thought, but by the serenity
of it. The man in the tunnel was distracted by the lazy movement of her
father’s arm. The same thing had happened to Billy. She waved her hand in front
of his eyes and he froze. The move came out of her spontaneously. She hadn’t
planned it, or even thought about it at all. She wanted to think it had stuck
in her mind because of its graceful curves. But she was bothered by the thought
that she was drawn to it because of its extreme violence. She found it all very
unsettling. She breathed a sigh of relief when Sensei announced that class was
over for the evening.
 

After she changed back into Andie’s
clothes, Emily waited outside by the truck for Danny.
 
Sensei walked out to her and asked her some vague question
about “things.” He clearly didn’t know how to ask what he really wanted to
know: was everything okay with her and her family? That he feared something had
gone wrong was easy for her to see. She didn’t answer him right away. She had
no idea how to begin an answer, so she kept him at a polite distance. “I can’t
really talk about it right now," she said. “But I’m fine. Please don’t
worry about me.”

“Where did that last move come
from?” he pressed. She hardly knew what to say. She didn’t dare lie to him
about this.

“I think it came as if out of a
dream. I don’t understand it any better than that.”

In a way what she said was the
truth. But it was also designed to conceal as much as possible about her
current circumstances from Sensei. He would find out soon enough that things
had changed at the estate. Then he would have to ask even more personal
questions. Her father was his old friend. He would not be able to let the
matter drop. The whole town would eventually find out what had happened. There
would be questions, an investigation, perhaps even suspicions about her own
role in those events. She hadn’t committed any crime, she’d done nothing wrong.
Still she began to see it was not going to be so simple to step back into her
previous life. In order to make the transition from Emily to Michiko, on which
her entire future safety depended, she needed precisely not to become the
center of attention of the whole town. If everyone in Bath County knew she was
both people, she would never be free of the people who had killed her father.